Record Store Day Chart Recap: Vinyl Album Sales Reach Historic High

Record Store Day (RSD) shakes up Billboard’s charts, as a bevy of albums and singles released for the indie retail event on April 19 overwhelm our lists.

On the 25-position Tastemakers chart — which tracks the top-selling albums at independent and small chain stores — only three albums weren’t specifically tied to RSD festivities. The chart (excerpted below) is led by Green Day’s 18-track “Demolicious” album, which was released exclusively to indie retailers on CD, vinyl and cassette. (Yes, cassette.

It sold nearly 4,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Of that sum, 42 percent were CD, 42 percent were vinyl LPs and 16 percent were cassettes. “Demolicious” will become available to digital retailers on May 19, but its physical configurations will remain exclusive to indie sellers for the time being.

INDIE RULES: Independent stores represented 19.4 percent of all physical albums sold in the week ending April 20 (605,000 of 5.3 million) — likely the highest share of physical albums for the indie sector since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991.